


lulled in these flowers (with dances and delight)

by heartshapedcandy



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24323029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartshapedcandy/pseuds/heartshapedcandy
Summary: Etherian midsummer celebrations have more rules than Adora knows what to do with. Do not step into the fairy circles. Do not stray too far from the fire. If you see a handsome stranger just beyond the edge of firelight, do not take their hand.or“You’re going to make us late to the party,” Catra says. Despite the admonishment, she looks pleased at Adora’s attention, preening under her gaze.“Since when do you care?” Adora says. She reaches out a hand, hooks it in her belt loop, tugs. “Let’s just be late.”orthe summer solstice and a night of festivities
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 269





	lulled in these flowers (with dances and delight)

**Author's Note:**

> friends to enemies to lovers to being that annoying couple who flirts too much and won't stop hooking up at parties. it's a niche market, but somebody's gotta do it.

There’s a path through the Whispering Woods if you know where to look for it. It slips into underbrush and over streams, skitters to stops at gnarled beds of tree roots only to pick back up on the other side.

Well-worn and meandering, it has no apparent destination, just offers footholds among mildewing leaves, likely an old deer path, or the packed dirt left in the wake of one of the forest’s larger inhabitants.

Adora jogs it most mornings. Just the sound of her breath and dawn quiet, dew-drenched grass wetting her boots, nocturnal creatures skittering back to burrows, the flowers waking and arching toward sun.

The runs weren't her idea – it started as advice from some well-meaning sage Glitter dragged her to in Mystacor the year after the war ended, after admitting nightmares were still keeping her awake.

It seemed wish-washy, therapizing and cloying. But even Catra urged her to try, and Adora found peace in it. Or something close to it.

She found a quiet. A solitude. It feels a lot like running _to_ something. Or whatever. She tries not to give Glitter the self-satisfaction of thinking too much about it, god forbid she makes her go see a therapist again.

She’s heading back toward Bright Moon now, cresting the hill that will bring the peaked roof of the tower into view. She lengthens her strides, feels her breath harsh in her throat, her muscles burning and sore-sweet.

Her shirt is damp, sticking to her stomach and arms with sweat, and the legs of her tights are striped with mud and creek-water. She tilts her chin to the sky, the first rays of light painting her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, in heat and warmth. Distantly, in her peripheral, she can feel the power of She-Ra pulsing. Present and strong, ever since the final days of the war more than a year and a half before.

It feels fucking incredible.

She picks up the pace. This is her first morning back in Bright Moon in more than a week, and she hasn’t seen Catra in almost two.

She’s back just in time to help Bright Moon and the neighboring villages celebrate Midsummer Night’s Eve, a festival Perfuma has been heckling her about for _months._ She made the mistake of promising to help set up weeks ago. Now all she wants is to see Catra and, god willing, take a bath.

Adora returned late last night from a diplomatic mission in the Crimson Waste, and crashed in Glimmer’s room half-way through a debriefing. She thought about going to Catra as soon as she woke, surely cocooned somewhere in their palace rooms, but knew if she woke her up before sunrise, even after weeks of absence, Catra would be fuming.

But now, morning truly here, Bright Moon waking up around her as she jogs through the city square, anticipation builds in her chest like friction.

She nods at the guards by the palace doors, enters the marbled halls at a half-run, stripping her sweat soaked shirt as she goes.

She dabs at her forehead uselessly, and turns her head into her shoulder to sniff herself. The results are conclusive: Catra is never going to let her into bed like this. She heads for the door to their rooms anyway, opening it quietly and dropping her shirt in a pile just over the threshold. Kicking off her boots, she’s mindful of tracking mud onto the lavish rug that delineates the sleeping area.

Already, from across the room, she can make out a heap under the plush duvet. Sunlight shards through the high, Palladian arched windows, the glass baubles that hang from the ceiling refracting light on the walls in watery, rainbow pockets.

Adora creeps closer and feels herself immediately relax at the sight of Catra’s mop of unruly hair buried in the mound of pillows against the headboard – finally long enough to tie back again, spilling over her shoulders. Seeing her, it’s like her tension evaporates, stress she didn’t know she was holding, a band stretched tight, loosening.

She pauses by the bedside, appraises Catra’s sprawl, half-twisted in the blush pink blankets, flat on her stomach, her shoulders and legs bare. Her mouth is relaxed in sleep, but her fingers twist tightly in a pillow case.

She looks so small like this, huddled in the center of the bed, and she snuffles quietly, shifting as Adora lowers herself onto the edge of the mattress. Adora extends a hand, strokes carefully at Catra’s back, follows the ridges of her spin until she can cup her waist. Rubs a thumb over the band of her boy shorts.

“Catra,” a whisper. Adora watches her eyelids flicker. Tries again, a little louder. “Catra, baby, I’m home.”

Catra cracks an eye. Adora watches the pupil slit in the bright light of the room. Take her in. Her eye narrows in a calculated disinterest. Like Adora hasn’t been gone for weeks, like she doesn’t miss her at all. Catra turns her face into the pillow. When she speaks, her voice is muffled, growly with sleep in that way Adora never admits she loves.

“You smell.”

Adora hums. Considers the dirt on her tights, and wriggles out of them, too, leaving her in briefs. At the sound of fabric hitting the floor, one of Catra’s ears perks with interest, but she doesn’t look up.

“That’s what you have to say to me after 13 whole days?”

“And seven hours,” Catra grumbles. “But who’s counting?”

“Aw.” Adora is immediately and terribly endeared. “You do care.”

There’s a grunt that could be acknowledgement, but Adora doesn’t wait to find out. She rolls fully onto the bed and slings her body over Catra’s, holding her weight up until just her hips bully against Catra’s, her arms on either side of her shoulders. She lowers her head, presses a kiss against the back of Catra’s neck.

Feeling a shiver, she drags her mouth lower. A kiss between her shoulder blades. A nip against the freckled expanse of her back.

Catra turns her head, offers Adora her profile. Grinning, Adora kisses her there, too – her cheek, her jaw, off-center on her temple, mostly catching hairline.

“You missed me,” Adora says. She drops her body lower, crowds Catra into the mattress.

“You’re so sweaty,” Catra says. It sounds less like a protest now, and she wriggles, turning under Adora’s weight until – finally, finally, finally – they are face to face. Catra grins, cheeks blossoming into dimples, nose wrinkling.

“Hey,” she says. Canines flash at the corner of her smile.

Charmed, Adora grins back. “Hi.”

Catra tilts her chin up, silently asking for a kiss. Adora obliges eagerly, shifting her weight until she can feel Catra’s chest rise against her own. She dips her head and catches Catra’s mouth, nods into the kiss, parting Catra’s lips with her tongue, dipping into the heat of her mouth.

She tastes early-morning-stale, her skin bed-warm and creased with the swaddle of the duvet. It’s a perfect alchemy, the components of an ideal Bright Moon morning, every sensation marked by the familiarity of almost two years of _this,_ but still surprising, still a little hard to believe.

After all of it, after everything: Catra’s arm curled between them, hand absently palming at Adora’s chest. The jog of her hips under Adora’s weight. The knock of their brows as Adora shifts the angle of the kiss, the catch of Catra’s teeth against her bottom lip.

Catra kisses back lazily, like she can’t be bothered. But Adora rolls her tongue into her mouth, and hears a whine unknot from the back of Catra’s throat.

It’s a messy kiss, errant and a little meandering. Adora tenses above her, conscious of the noises Catra is making. Every whine and whimper like marionette strings tugging low in her stomach, between her legs. Catra’s hands climb to cup at the back of her neck, her cheek, urging her closer, soft-pink tongue stroking into her mouth.

Adora pulls back, their lips separating with a pop, saliva stringing between their mouths. She buries her face in Catra’s neck, presses a kiss against her pulse point, retreats.

Below her, Catra’s cheeks are flushed, her teeth dig into her bottom lip, whiting out the plush pink.

“That’s quite a homecoming,” Adora says. Conscious of not crushing Catra under her, she makes to sit up. Catra’s hand tightens in the fabric of her chest wrap, pulls her back down, noses knocking.

“Done so soon?” Catra says, a little mean. It spikes in Adora’s chest and she swallows hard, watching Catra’s eyes narrow, head tilting. “But I’ve been so good.”

She drags her hand down Adora’s chest, tracing the hard line of her abdomen until her nails snag in the waistband of Adora’s briefs.

“I wasn’t mean at all.” Here, she arches up, biting a kiss against Adora’s mouth, slipping a thigh against her. “I did exactly what I was told.” She rolls her hips, her voice takes on a whine now. “I behaved.”

The last syllable drawn out, nipped against the shell of Adora’s ear.

Adora groans, a little breathless. The damp heat of Catra's voice against her ear, the side of her neck, thrills like she had dipped her fingers inside her, instead.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Are you saying I’ve been bad?” Catra is grappling at her now, reaching for one of the arms propping up Adora’s weight and tugging at her wrist. “Why don’t you punish me, then?”

Adora whines, shifting to one forearm as Catra begins to guide her hand between her legs. Her pupils are swollen and dark, and her biting grin only falters when Adora goes where she’s told, cupping her over her shorts, stroking with her thumb until Catra’s hips jump. Even through fabric, Adora can feel Catra wet against her palm.

“You’re so easy,” Catra says. But the words are stuttered, staggered, and she grinds against Adora’s hand, still gripping at her wrist, nails digging into flesh.

“I’m easy?’ Adora asks. She smiles, wrenching her hand free from Catra’s grasp and slipping it down her thigh, just to knead, to hold. “I’m not the one on my back.”

Catra whimpers, tries for a kiss, but Adora evades, ducking her head to lick at her neck, her collarbones, down her chest. She stops at her navel, sucking a kiss against her hipbones, nipping strawberry marks into the hollow of her hips.

“Adora,” Catra is whining, squirming under her weight. “Touch me, now.”

Tilting her head up to look at her, Adora meets her eyes, pillows her chin on Catra’s stomach. “Have you really been good?’

Catra thrashes. “So good, so good.”

“Okay,” Adora whispers. She’s never been able to hold out for long, especially not like this – here, in their bed, Catra splayed out in the sheets, lean muscles tensing as she urges Adora to touch her, to love her, to fuck her. 

“Touch me, touch me.” Like a chant now, demanding, arching into Adora’s hold.

“Okay, okay.” Adora pauses to press one more gentle, open-mouthed kiss against the tops of Catra’s thighs. Her cheeks are rosy with exertion, and her lips part when she tugs off Catra’s shorts, her legs falling open, her hand moving to knot in Adora’s hair.

“Missed you,” Adora says, eyes darting up, finding Catra looking back at her, a little frenzied, a little wild, before burying her face between her legs. Sighing, finally, with relief.

Catra’s hand tightens in her hair, claws biting her scalp, humming something that sounds dangerously close to a purr. Adora smiles against her, face wet from lips to chin, pins Catra’s hips with her forearm, and does as she’s told. 

**

Fresh from the shower, Adora ties her hair up in one of the ornate, full-length mirrors that gilds the room’s walls.

She hums as she does, taking a moment to perfect the sweep of her bangs, straightening her jacket and flexing her wrist. Without conjuring it, she can feel the promise of She-ra’s sword in her palm, the suggestion of a hilt, a blade.

Beside her, the bed is rumpled, sheets in disarray, the comforter dragging on the ground, half the pillows discarded. She spies mud streaking the sheets and frowns, only distracted by the sound of footsteps behind her.

She doesn’t turn, but finds Catra in the reflection, her hair shower-wet and rumpled, pulling a loose, black crop top over her head. Her cheeks are flushed from warm-bathwater, eyes bright, an almost-smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Catra surprises her with two arms around her waist, resting her head between her shoulder blades and huffing a breath that Adora can feel, warm and silky, through the fabric of her shirt.

Despite the height difference, Catra holds her as best she can like that, arms tightening until Adora covers Catra’s hands with her own.

“I missed you, too,” Catra murmurs, half-muffled, for once no teasing, no trace of irony. She squeezes briefly, releases her, and then thinks better of it: ducking back in for a final kiss, pressed sweetly to the corner of Adora’s mouth. “Don’t leave for that long again.”

If there’s a trace of a threat behind the words, Adora lets it slide. 

**

“Where have you been all morning?”

Glimmer’s tone is brusque, and she sweeps into the forest clearing with her mouth pinched tight, like she’s chewing at the inside of her cheek.

Wrestling with a bag of tent poles, Adora squints. “I was busy.”

“What could be more important than this?”

Adora rubs at the back of her neck, shrugs. “Catra and I were just – catching up.”

Glimmer groans, slumping into a rough tree trunk, tilting her head back to thump against the bark.

“Of course you were.” She side eyes Adora, suddenly sly. “For a bloodthirsty horde commander, your girlfriend is so needy.” Crossing her arms, she laughs. “I woke up with her at the foot of my bed the other night. If you didn’t get back sooner, anything could have happened.”

Adora drops the tent poles with a clatter and strides over to Glimmer in two steps, wrestles her into a headlock. They grapple, Adora mussing her hair until her tiara knocks askew.

Glimmer teleports out of her grasp and Adora swipes for her, catching an ankle. They sprawl to the forest floor, already laughing. Spring clovers and ticklish wheatgrass soften their fall, and the wrestling turns quickly into a half-hearted swatting, diminishing into something closer to an aggressive cuddle.

Adora hooks her chin over Glimmer’s shoulder, squeezes her hip. “You know what? I’ve decided I don’t mind. You can have her.”

Glimmer giggles, rolling away from her until they splay on their backs, side by side. Above them, the Etherian sky is a pale, possibility blue, cloudless and deep. There is a promise of stars on the other side, echoes of infinity.

“Who’s going to tell Catra she’s my betrothed?” Glimmer says, choking on a giggle. It turns into a full-body laugh when she hears an aghast gasp from the edge of the clearing.

Bow is walking toward them, arms full of firewood that he stacks carefully before offering a showy pout.

“Did I hear you say you’re promised to Catra now?”

“Sorry, Bow.” Glimmer rolls her head back to look at him, already reaching out a hand for him to take. “It was really only a matter of time.”

He slips a hand into hers, letting her pull him down beside them. Adora tucks her arms behind her head, closes her eyes, content to bask in the summer air, cloudy with pollen, dew-damp and sweet. Beside her, she feels Glimmer shift, hears the tell-tale smack of a kiss.

She grumbles, eyes still closed, but can’t conjure the energy to tease them, instead letting the sun heat her skin, warming her down to her fingertips, their work forgotten around them.

“Perfuma is going to kill us,” Adora sighs. “She said she wanted us to set this up before the guests begin to arrive.” She rolls onto her side, propping her head on her palm.

Glimmer is cuddled close to Bow’s side, one of his arms tucked around her.

“Just bring out the mighty She-Ra,” Glimmer grumbles. “She could get this done in no time _and_ Perfuma can’t say no to her.”

Flexing her biceps, Adora grins. “I promised not to use my powers for evil or, uh, seduction.”

Bow, mumbling, “that’s not what Catra says.”

With a squawk of protest, Adora moves to swat him, Glimmer caught in the crossfire. Reflex-quick, he catches her hand, folds it into his instead of letting go. Adora allows it, enjoying the rough-warm of his palm around her own, callused fingers rubbing gentle across the ridge of her knuckles.

“Glad you’re back,” he says. Then, that wide Bow grin, charming and toothy. “I couldn’t keep Catra out of Glimmer’s bed with you gone.”

Adora groans, glances at the tent they still have to pitch, the firewood for the bonfire they still have to build. “Should we get started?”

Glimmer sighs, settling contently in the grass.

“In a minute,” she says. She breathes deep and Adora feels her heartbeat steady to follow, Bow’s own exhales slowing to match.

They lay for a minute, and a minute more, heads tilted toward the sunlight, breath falling into sync.

**

Etherian midsummer celebrations have more rules than Adora knows what to do with.

Do not step into the fairy circles.

Do not stray too far from the fire.

If you see a handsome stranger just beyond the edge of firelight, _do not_ take their hand.

“Maybe carry a _pinch_ of salt in your pockets, just for luck,” Perfuma says. Her voice is willowy with nerves, hands wringing. “You can eat the food, but if you stumble upon a banquet feast hidden in a circle of elm trees, I would advise against it.”

Adora stoops closer to Glimmer’s ear, murmuring out of the corner of her mouth. “Is she joking?”

Glimmer whispers back. “It’s hard to tell.”

“Definitely don’t eat the fruit,” Perfuma says, a touch of panic coloring her cheeks. “Just to be safe.”

They’ve been helping Perfuma set up for the summer solstice bonfire all afternoon – with a few well-intentioned breaks – and they pulled off the prep with only light chastisement from the host and a brief cameo by She-Ra.

A gauzy white tent drapes at the clearing’s edge, lights strung around its canopy. It’s dusk now, blue-grey shadows dripping like moss from back-bent, long-limbed trees. The bonfire is crackling at the center of the circular clearing, and the air smells like woodsmoke and trampled grass.

A lively group of Plumerians are setting out a long table laden with food – conspicuously absent of fruit – and vats of sour-smelling mead. Hoppy and amber-gold, the drink is truly the main event.

That and, as Perfuma reminds them, hands clasped earnestly in front of her heart, honoring the sacred summer solstice with “peace and love.”

“Just remember,” Perfuma says graciously, eyes welling, “to have fun.”

Adora and Glimmer retreat before Perfuma can work herself up to another lecture about the _thinning veil_ , heading back to the tents pitched a short walk away to get ready.

“I noticed that Catra is nowhere to be found,” Glimmer says. She sidesteps a flood of partygoers heading toward the bonfire, some with instruments tucked under their arms, other already nursing drinks, voices alcohol-laden and loud.

“She has, like, a sixth sense for avoiding work,” Adora says. She grins, fond, despite herself. “She’ll show up when everyone is _truly_ drunk and can’t ask her to do anything.”

They reach the clearing where most guests have pitched tents for the night, too far a walk back to Bright Moon or the respective villages in the dark. Bow and Glimmer’s lavish silk tent is stationed beside her and Catra’s standard, canvas shelter. It reminds her of the kind all soldiers were issued in the Horde. It shouldn’t be a comfort but, somehow, the military lines and compact practicality still feels like a kind of home.

There is a lantern glowing inside, but Catra is nowhere to be seen.

After parting ways with Glimmer, promising to meet her and Bow by the bonfire later, Adora gets ready for the party alone.

The ritual of it is soothing, a practice perfected after countless balls and celebrations in the wake of the war.

She has a dress folded in her rucksack, flowy and summery, cornflower blue. It leaves most of her back bare, the skirt brushing the tops of her thighs. She lets her hair down, brushing it out soft and tawny, but pins her bangs back with a silver clip, a gift from Catra months ago, something she had presented shyly, face flushing at Adora’s obvious pleasure.

Dabbing perfume at her pulse points, the arch of her neck, the turn of her wrist, she considers herself in the small mirror propped against the canvas wall. She looks older like this, strong. She studies the hard line of her jaw, the small crook in her nose, broken too many times as a cadet. There are the beginning of laugh lines at the corners of her eyes, a deep dimple in the apple of her cheek.

Turning her head, she touches the silver hair clip, feels the cool metal under her fingertips.

Then, from behind her: “You look beautiful.”

She turns, startled. She hadn’t even heard Catra push past the entrance flap, but there she is – lounging casual in the flickering, gold lantern-light. The warm flame casts her in sharp lines, the lean angles of her body thrown into relief, her hands shoved deep in her pockets.

“Catra, I—” Adora pauses, takes her in. “I, uh, wow.”

Catra grins, saunters forward with a cocky, infuriating swagger. Adora hates that she knows exactly what she does to her. Tight leather pants, a half-tucked silk blouse mostly unbuttoned, her hair tousled and loose.

Through the gap of her shirt, Adora can see the lace of her bra.

Catra follows her gaze, dips her eyes down to her own cleavage, to the delicate black lace, then back up. Practically purring, she moves just within Adora’s reach.

Leans close, whispers, “It’s a matching set.”

Adora’s stomach plunges, air leaving in a rush, like a punch to the gut.

“Baby,” she whines, and reaches for her. “No fair.”

Catra sidesteps, evading her even in the tight space of the tent, hands held behind her back.

“If you’re good,” she says, smug, “I’ll show you after.”

Adora lunges forward, frustrated, makes another grab. She catches her this time, wraps Catra up in her arms, half-stooping to bury her face against her neck. She can feel the vibration of Catra’s laugh against her cheek, warm skin humming.

Catra cards carefully through her hair, shivering when Adora dips to press her mouth against the hollow of her throat. When Catra doesn’t protest, she drags her mouth lower, swallows a kiss against the swell of her cleavage. Another against the top of her bra, lips hitting scratchy lace.

Catra does stop her now, pushing out of her grasp, a hand flat on Adora’s chest. Adora is pleased to see that Catra is a little breathless, flushed, pupils brimming and round in the tent’s half-dark.

“You’re going to make us late to the party,” Catra says. Despite the admonishment, she looks pleased at Adora’s attention, preening under her gaze.

“Since when do you care?” Adora says. She reaches out a hand, hooks it in her belt loop, tugs. “Let’s just be late.”

Catra steps backward, pulling Adora with her, nudging open the tent flaps, ushering in the cool forest air and the dark night, beyond.

“Oh no,” she says, turns, pulls Adora out into the moonlight. “I think this is going to be much, much more fun.”

**Author's Note:**

> can u tell i read a midsummer night's dream in sixth grade and haven't stopped talking about it since? as always, find me on tumblr @nevervalentines


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